NY Breakers Roster Drops 6 Australians, Adds 7 New Names

The New York Breakers have an updated roster – as expected, six of the seven Australian team members no longer appear, with seven new European swimmers now listed.

The lone exception is Brendon Smith, who is still planning on competing for the Breakers this season. As a non-funded athlete, he escapes the brunt of the blockade issued by Swimming Australia keeping its top athletes from participating in the league this season.

Here are the Australians no longer appearing on the roster:

• Abbey Harkin
• Meg Bailey
• Mollie O’Callaghan
• Mikkayla Sheridan
• Matthew Temple
• Cameron McEvoy

Temple’s name actually still appears on the ISL site, but SwimSwam has been told that Temple is not competing in the ISL this season.

Here are the new additions:

• Molly Renshaw (GBR)
• Chloe Golding (GBR)
• Alicia Tchorz (POL)
• Michal Poprawa (POL)
• Lewis Clareburt (NZL)
• Jakub Skierka (POL)
• Jacob Whittle (GBR)

The bulk of the new swimmers come from Great Britain and Poland, with three swimmers from each of those countries.

On the men’s side, McEvoy will be a huge loss. He projected to be one of the team’s top sprint freestylers. Smith would have been a top 400 free/400 IM entrant, and Temple arguably the team’s top butterflyer.

Whittle is another outstanding young sprint freestyler – he joins Matt Richards on the Breakers roster. Clareburt is an IMer taking over for Smith. And Poprawa should fill the fly role vacated by Temple. Skierka is a backstroker who adds depth at a bit of a thin event for the Breakers.

For the women, Bailey would have been arguably the top 400 IMer on the roster, with Sheridan and O’Callaghan holding down backstroke roles.

Tchorz projects as a backstroker and IMer to help fill that void, and Golding is a backstroker as well.

This gives the Breakers a few concentrations of nationality on their roster: they now have 8 British swimmers on the team, which is 2nd-most behind only the London Roar, and 5 Polish swimmers, which is the most of any team in the league.

Renshaw is a breaststroker, mostly filling the shoes of Harkin.

Also of note, this gives the Breakers 17 male and 15 female swimmers for the 2020 season. While the league announced that teams would be capped at 16 male and 16 female swimmers, it appears as though an exception has been made, though the team still remains under 32 total athletes.

New York Breakers’ Latest 2020 Roster